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Incorporeality
Incorporeality is one of the attributes of God in terms of his personhood. Scriptural Data Here are some scriptural data pertinent to this attribute. God Is A Spiritual Being 1 John 4:24. Jesus says, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” So God is a spiritual being. He is not a physical being. He is a being which is spirit. God Is Omnipresent God is not spatially located in the way that a physical object is. Rather, God is omnipresent. That will entail his incorporeality. God Is Indiscernible To The Five Senses He cannot be perceived by the five senses. 1 Timothy 6:16, speaking of Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords, “who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” Here God is said to be invisible. He cannot be seen and never has been seen. Also 1 Timothy 1:17 says, “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be power and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” So God is said by the Scriptures to be invisible. That would encompass not merely eyesight, but also being able to feel God or smell God or use any of the other five senses to apprehend God. God is not a physical object that is discernible by the five senses. The Old Testament Forbids Making Images of God Exodus 20:4-5a, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and serve them.” Here it is prohibited to make images of God that would be used in worship. Deuteronomy 4:15-16: Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female. So God is not to be portrayed in paintings, in statuary, in any sort of visual image. Any sort of image, however beautiful, however artistically inspiring, will diminish who God is by portraying him in some necessarily finite, limited, corporeal way. God is not to be pictured in any sort of way, according to the Scriptures. The Bible Often Describes God In Bodily Terms Psalms 18:6-10 gives an example: In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens, and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub, and flew; he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind. Here God is described by the psalmist in very graphic bodily terms. He has ears. He has nostrils. He is like a fire-breathing monster who rides the heavens – rides on the cherubs through the clouds. At the same time that Israel is commanded not to make images of God yet there are these very physicalistic descriptions of God in the Psalms. People might well wonder what is going on here. People See Visions of God There are, in the Old Testament and throughout the Scriptures, visions of God described – so-called theophanies – where people see God. These are often in bodily terms. For example, Exodus 33:20-23. Here Moses is asking to see the glory of God. God says to him that he will show Moses his glory, but he says, “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.” Here God describes himself as having a face and hands and even a back that Moses can look at! God is described in very human terms here as having some sort of a body that Moses is allowed to glimpse. But Moses cannot see God's face. Category:Doctrine of God Category:Personal Attributes